


To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

by vogue91



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Crack Pairing, F/M, Out of Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-14
Updated: 2017-12-14
Packaged: 2019-02-14 18:10:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13013331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vogue91/pseuds/vogue91
Summary: They were actual dreams. Dreams that had an heavenly taste, dreams where she was happy...Dreams where she saw a Draco Malfoy that shared nothing with the real one.





	To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

**Author's Note:**

> Prompts: Draco/Hermione, Out of Reach, "And since when has Malfoy been one of the world’s great thinkers?"
> 
> So, I wrote about this pairing. One and only. I don't really get it, but it was sort of fun to write anyway.   
> English is not my native language. Have mercy.

_[Knew the signs. Wasn’t right]_

It was impossible.

Hermine sat up on the bed, panting. She touched her forehead, and she wasn’t surprised to find herself drenched in sweat.

It had happened _again_. And she still was unable to find a plausible explanation for what was going on.

_It’s Harry’s fault. Of course it’s his fault. He keeps talking about him, about how suspicious he is, of what he could or couldn’t do. He turned him into an obsession._

These were the excuses she had fed to herself over the past few days, excuses that that night had become more fleeting and useless to actually explain what was happening to her.

It was the fifth night in a row she dreamt of Draco Malfoy. Not nightmares, no cloaks or Dark Marks, no death or Killing Curse.

They were actual dreams. Dreams that had an heavenly taste, dreams where she was happy...

Dreams where she saw a Draco Malfoy that shared nothing with the real one.

She laid her head on the pillow, feeling a vague shiver at the prospect of falling back asleep. She didn’t want her mind to play the same tricks on her again. Not twice during the same night.

And, with this traces of anxiety, she closed her eyes and let herself being cuddled from a finally dreamless sleep.

 

~

 

“Mad. She’s gone completely mad. But after all we knew it was going to happen! Spending whole days over those bloody books was bound to take its toll someday. Look how Percy ended up.” Ron said, his mouth full of porridge. Harry, sitting in front of him, could just smile. He had given up years ago trying to find a minimum trace of bon ton in his friend when there was food involved. It was just a part of who he was.

“And why has she gone mad?” he asked, like he had no idea of what he was talking about. Ron, on his part, opened his eyes wide.

“Can’t you see she’s always distracted? Like she’s thinking of something she doesn’t want to talk about.” he explained, like it was obvious. He wasn’t considering that his friend probably looked at Hermione with a little less attention than him.

Meanwhile, the object of their discussion appeared alongside Harry.

“Good morning boys.” she mumbled, grabbing a slice of bread, annoyed. She stared at it long, intently, but it was clear even for Harry that she was thinking about something else.

“Hermione, you have to eat it, not to read its mind.” Ron told her, glaring at her.

“Let’s just hope someone taught Occlumancy to that poor bread.” Harry joked, half amused and half sad, thinking about his lessons with Snape.

How it often happened those days, the girl didn’t even answer them, nor she dared to smile at Harry’s joke.

She wasn’t staring at the bread and she wasn’t even thinking.

Her gaze had been captured by a shape elegantly laid two tables next to theirs.

 

_[I was stupid for a while._

_Swept away by you_

_and now I feel like a fool]_

She came back to herself after a few moments, feeling absolutely crazy.

She couldn’t help but recall the images from that night’s dream. The shapes weren’t clear on her mind, they got confused with the sensations she could still feel alive on her skin.

The touch of those hands, pale and cold, that for some strange reason didn’t make her shiver, instead they made her almost blind to the boy in front of her.

A canopy bed, her uniform abandoned on it. Her hands on Draco’s chest, playing with his tie with a malice that didn’t belong to her outside the oneiric world.

And her breath grew shorter, laboured, unveiling an unconceivable urgency, and the desire of making that contact deeper, almost as if she wanted to dig into the skin of the Slytherin. She couldn’t remember any decency in that sweet dream, no qualms in showing herself to him in her hole nudity, both physical and mental. She could just remember a blinding lust, that in the light of day made her feel ashamed of her own thoughts.

That morning lessons were just words thrown to the wind. Her mind kept going down the same path, like she was under the Imperius Curse. She hated herself for those roads she kept walking, but she didn’t know what to do to stop.

Until, during Potions, she didn’t realize there was only one thing to do.

In order to forget a Draco Malfoy that didn’t exist, she needed to deal with the real one.

And she knew it was all too easy to get what she wanted. After all, Malfoy was like an animal, if provoked he wouldn’t have hesitated to use his instincts in order to prevail.

Once the lesson was over, Hermione followed him.

She saw him dismissing harshly Crabbe and Goyle, who were following him as shadows, and then going towards the stairs.

At first it was easy to follow him, she just needed to blend with the other students that were animating the hallways; but when they got to the seventh floor, there was no one serving the same purpose, and the girl was forced to hide behind a niche in the wall.

When she dared looking again toward the hallway, she opened her eyes wide. There was no trace of Draco, he seemed to have vanished into thin air. She was still ruminating on this, when the solution hit her.

_The Room of Requirement._

She smiled, feeling silly for not having understood before where the boy was going.

Nonetheless, she still wondered what he was doing there. Of course, she knew nothing about Malfoy’s habit, but Harry’s suspicions about him kept surfacing in her mind.

Knockturn Alley, Borgin & Burke, the weird attitude the boy had had for the past months... she was sure she just stumbled onto a new piece of the puzzle, but she still couldn’t see the bigger picture.

Draco Malfoy had  a secret, and this was for sure. Just like it was sure that she was supposed to be to a whole other place right now, that she shouldn’t be there alone, following what, in the end, was just a dream.

 

_[And I hope that in time_

_You’ll be out of my mind]_

She couldn’t say how long she waited. Ten minutes, then fifteen, then half an hour. Until she didn’t lose count of the passing moments.

She leant against the wall, waiting patiently for the Slytherin to decide and come out the Room of Requirement.

When she saw the door appearing she jumped, like a feline ready to attack.

Draco, seeing her there all of a sudden, almost chocked.

“What in the bloody hell are you doing here, Granger?” he asked, his voice so bitter that Hermione couldn’t miss to notice how it lacked its usual irony, its usual self-important grin when he was talking to her.

“It so happens that I was waiting for you, Malfoy.” she replied, trying to keep herself in check, to contain the images that kept wandering her thoughts undisturbed. The boy raised an eyebrow, glaring.

“What do you want?” he just asked, and Hermione could see a sort of urgency in him, but that’s not what surprised her. Malfoy seemed to be... _uncomfortable_ talking to her. This detail, instead of making her feel stronger, put her on the defensive. The Draco that was facing her wouldn’t have been useful to the purpose she had followed him for, he looked too much like the guy that crowded her dreams. With that tired look, his back bent by a weight Hermione knew was there, but that she couldn’t catch the essence of.

“What were you doing in the Room of Requirement?” she said in the end, pretending this was all about her role as a Prefect, and not the mere curiosity of a very confused girl. Malfoy frowned, and finally a grin appeared on his face.

“I don’t really see how it’s any of your business, Mudblood.” he answered with a venomous hiss. Hermione closed her eyes, sighing. It was what she desired, those two syllables to remind her how the Slytherin could raise only hatred in her.

“It’s my business the moment you break the rules.” she pointed out, knowing that she was grasping at straws, and that she wasn’t gonna last much longer.

Malfoy raised an eyebrow, still looking at her.

“And, if I may be so bold, what rule was I breaking, exactly?” he waited for the Gryffindor to come up with a convincing answer, which he knew didn’t exist. Hermione fought not to blush. She knew there was no logical explanation. He hadn’t broken any rule, it wasn’t any Prefect business what a Student did with his free time, as long as he was inside the school boundaries and wasn’t harming anyone else.

And yet there still were opposing feelings inside her, and she couldn’t stop them. She was taken by pride and curiosity, by a desire to run and the temptation to stay right where she was, and finding out what Malfoy was keeping hidden from her. She was nonetheless aware that she was probably the last person in the whole world he was going to talk to, as the very same feeling lived in her until very recently.

“I dreamt of you.” she whispered in the end, unable to bring that conversation where she wanted it. It was a part of that curse of being honest, that of having the truth always on the tip of one’s tongue, that of never being able to make up better lies, even while facing one’s worst enemy. And, besides, confession was the only thing that could somehow redeem her, that would’ve eradicated those dreams at their roots.

 

_[So confused, my heart’s bruised]_

The following laughter hit her with the strengths of a thousand sharp daggers, which penetrated her flesh until they hit the bone, like a torture she had inflicted on herself.

“Believe me, I laughed out of instinct, but maybe the correct reaction would be a bit more disgusted that this, Granger. I’d love to say it’s an honour to be dreamt by a little, filthy mudblood like you...” he got closer, slowly. “But I’d lie.” and he got his usual grin back. Hermione tried to look proud.

“And who said it wasn’t a nightmare?” she said, raising an eyebrow, challenging him. Malfoy shook his head.

“You look too much confused, and your intentions as well. No, I’m sure your mind has been playing tricks on you lately.” he replied idly, save smiling again. “Or am I wrong?” he asked, decided to torture her until she kept facing him, until she would’ve decided she’d had enough.

“Lucky there’s you to remind me that what I see it’s just madness, Malfoy.” her voice as bitter as she could manage. The boy grew even closer, filling the distance between them with a slowness that Hermione found suffocating.

When he got so close that she could feel his breath on her face, he stopped. With a hand he brushed her cheek, while she closed her eyes. The Slytherin knew all too well what he was doing to her, and she had no intentions of letting new images, more real than ever, overlapping the already existing ones, even though she knew the latter where the mere product of a subconscious too tormented to express what its true desires were.

“And what do you want from me? Do you want me to free you of those nightmares? To remind you who I truly am?” he whispered in her ear. “Tempting, mudblood. But how could I have a little bit of fun, then?” he felt her trembling under his hands. He moved a little bit, enough to look her in the eyes. “Tell me, are you scared mudblood, or are you just seduced by a dream?” he asked, his face twisted by arrogance. Hermione came back to herself and pushed him away.

“I don’t need your snake tricks to remind who you are, Malfoy.” she murmured, then smiled. “Or _what_ you are. Yes, I dreamt of you. No, it wasn’t a nightmare.” she sighed and turned, so that she wasn’t facing him anymore, like it was necessary to break the spell she had fallen victim to. “ _You_ are a nightmare, and this I know all too well.”

Draco went over her, towards the stairs. While going away, he spoke again.

“And yet, for once, I’m an alluring nightmare... aren’t I, Granger?” he said out loud, before disappearing downstairs.

“Darn it.” she gritted her teeth, convinced she had just been defeated in what could barely be called a battle.

Because, somehow, she knew she was fighting for a pride that had vanished the moment those dreams had started violating her mind, the same pride Malfoy took away with him with a few simple venomous words.

She raised her eyes, distracted by a noise. She frowned when she saw Peeves. The poltergeist was laughing and, hadn’t he been dead for quite a while now, Hermione thought he would’ve died from that laughter.

“Peeves... I’m begging you.” her voice hid a threat, that she didn’t hesitate to show. The poltergeist kept laughing, ignoring her words, and left.

Hermione would’ve loved to think he would’ve kept what he had heard for himself, but her was a very thin hope.

 

_[Out of reach, couldn’t see_

_We were never meant to be]_

“So...” started Ron, clearly on pins and needles. Hermione raised an eyebrow. They were in the Gryffindor Common room, in front of the fireplace. She was reading distracted a book of Transfiguration, while Ron and Harry kept eying at her, dubious.

“So?” Hermione repeated, ready to pounce. Ron blushed.

“Well... Peeves has been telling a very weird story.” he explained, his voice faint. The girl smiled, like she had no idea whatsoever what he was talking about.

“What kind of story?” she asked idly.

“Erk... it seems like Malfoy thinks that you... well, that you dream about him.” he murmured, getting more distant form her, as fearing her reaction. Hermione raised her eyes from the book, and tilted her head.

“Really? And since when has Malfoy been one of the world’s great thinkers?” she joked. Ron swallowed, moving closer to Harry.

“I don’t know. It’s... it’s what Peeves said.” he grimaced. Hermione shrugged, then she stood up and went toward the stairs.

“That poltergeist talks too much.” she muttered, leaving them speechless, the look in their eyes more confused than before.

Once she reached her dormitory, she fell on the bed, taking her head in her hands.

Little did she care about what Peeves was saying around.

What really mattered was that a few hours before Malfoy had annihilated her dreams and, at the same time, had made them born again from their ashes, turning them into something she would’ve never been able to control. He had dug them up into reality, a touchable reality, that had nothing of the oneiric world. The picture of a boy that would’ve never belonged to her, that she _didn’t want_ to be hers, but that her instinct kept pointing as a path to follow. It was an extremely different image, but right now it brought the same desecrating confusion. A confusion she couldn’t put a name on, a confusion Malfoy had sunk in her just getting close, just touching her, in a feeling so new and, like he had said, so damn alluring.

She laid her head on the pillow, knowing that night she would’ve rested in the immensity of darkness, far from those obsessing ideas her minds had fun making up.

And if before she was scared to fall asleep, right know she felt sharper the terror of waking up.

_To sleep... perchance, to dream._


End file.
